Monday, 13 February 2012

Valentoons

Love it or hate it, Valentines Day is here again! And what better thing to do with your loved one then to sit around Feb 14 and watch some heart warming animated goodies.

I certainly can’t think of anything better to do. Other than going dancing, going out for a romantic walk, making a special home cooked dinner, or having seeeeee…conds of said delicious homecooked meal. Regardless, I love to love some lovely cartoons about love with my lovely lover. (Love.) So here I present some Cupid-approved cartoons for you and your hunnybun, smoochy-poo or snuggly bear to watch on this V-tines Day. No need to thank me.

Pepé Le Pew

Here’s the thing. If it wasn’t for his natural stink, I think Pepé would actually be quite a catch. I mean he’s romantic, suave, dramatic, spontaneous, and persistant….well, ok, maybe a little too persistant. Yeah, leave it to Looney Tunes to make even sexual harassment hilarious. But seriously though, if you and your partner love to watch endless flirtations and unrequited love with hilarious results, you can’t go wrong with a dashing french skunk and a cat that has a knack for getting a white line painted on her in numerous creative fashions. And hey! It’s a good lesson for the guys too. Guys, it doesn’t matter how great of a man you are; never underestimate the powers of personal hygiene.

True, many golden-age Disney stuff has to do with love, or finding love, or being in love, but instead of heading straight to one of the many princess movies Disney has, I’m choosing Lady and the Tramp for the most romantic. That’s right. The one with the dogs and the spagetti. Why? Well, in my opinion, it’s the most complete love story. Many of the classic princess movies have the princess long for Prince Bland (honestly, they’re pretty interchangeable) and eventually they wind up together. But Lady and the Tramp? The whole movie is about their love! You see both sides meet, start off not liking each other, then overtime their love blossoming. It’s probably the most developed romantic relationship that ol’ Walt actually worked on. Plus, who doesn’t want to accidentally kiss their sweetheart while being serenaded by a glorious Italian stereotype? That’s romance, baby!

Arnold’s Valentine

Hey Arnold was one of those shows where the main character wasn’t the reason why you watched the show. I mean, sure, Arnold’s a nice kid, but the real draw was the character of Helga. She was interesting, and also what made the show memorable. Her whole shtick was she was infatuated with Arnold (sometimes to the point of being an obsessive stalker) but didn’t know how to deal with those emotions, so she ended up bullying him. Some of the more memorable episodes dealt with her emotional conundrums, but the first one to take it a bit more seriously was Arnold’s Valentine. In it, Helga got an extreem makeover to disguise herself as Arnold’s french penpal in a hope to express her true feelings for him, while at the same time Arnold has to split his night with the disguised Helga, and a date he set up with his elementary school crush. The result is both classic sit-com hilarity, as well as a strangely mature and poignent statement about love and crushes. Especially for a kid’s show in the 90s. And for Nickelodeon. If you haven’t seen it, or it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, I say check this one out.

WALL-E

Robots in love. Let me repeat that: ROBOTS IN LOVE! It’s hard to think of a concept for a movie cuter than that. Also happening to be one of my favorite movies of all time for it’s script, sound design, animation, as well as simply having a feature length movie with hardly any dialogue, this film also get the nod for being one of the best animated love stories of all time. It’s still too young of a movie to say, but I really do hope the “define dancing” scene from this movie goes down in history as one of the most iconic scenes in animation. Do I really need to say anymore? If you have a heart, it will be melted by the time the credits roll on this one. See it with your significant other, then get ready for some extreem cuddling. Thank you, Pixar!